Eh screw it, I'll post it when I want damnit. Who: Penny and open. When: Day 3, 11:06 PM. Yay specifics. Where: Da pool. Interesting note: This was a fic that I decided to make into a start because the ending alluded me. So you know, we'll see how that goes.
Tre had never looked so good as he did this morning. Penny couldn’t quite pinpoint it; perhaps it was the vague sense that she had missed him. Walking arm-in-arm along the rooftop, studying the picturesque quality of the city below them, she felt as if nothing could go wrong this morning. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, she felt warmth down to her very bones. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it settle deep into her lungs, wanting to keep this moment with her.
It recycled out quickly with the next horror filled gasp she let out. Her eyes opened to find a monster attached to her arms, misfigured and towering above her, all brown sinew and gaping maw, tiny beady eyes focused on her in rage. The sun was no longer shining, the birds were no longer chirping; the sky was gray and gloomy, and Penny found herself pressed against the edge of the rooftop, begging, pleading with whatever God that she never believed in to save her from this mess.
Rough hands connected with her chest and she tumbled over, managing to get a last, clinging grasp to the edge of the roof. The sun returned to shining, the birds singing magnanimously, and Tre standing over her with a look of concerned terror on him. Penny didn’t know what had caused the change, nor did she care. The Tre she knew and loved was standing before her, and she begged, pleaded with him to help her up. He groped for her hands and found an arm, tugging her up with superhuman strength, lifting her until she was eye to eye with him, dangling over city streets. She didn’t know what she saw in those eyes in those few moments, but she felt herself falling as he let go and walked away, falling falling falling…
She came to herself with a rough gasp, eyes opening as she strained around for a look on the same sunny rooftop, the same birds smiling. Zane stared at her now, confused concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?” Penny nodded slowly, rubbing her chest above her heart, wondering what weird sort of day dream that was. Her arms moved of their own accord, attempting to loop through his, but he deftly moved them out of the way and shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets as they strolled.
The sky darkened first this time, before Zane began to change. She wondered how she knew it was going to happen, but yet again she stood rooted to the spot, terror making her stupid as the drool began to ooze from his four mouths, his eight eyes blinking at her in apparent bewilderment to find themselves in this situation. The look in those eyes was all she needed to turn and run, throw herself headlong off the roof.
Somehow, her hands were clinging, struggling to get a good hold on the edge as Zane came over to assist, his normal self once again. Penny knew what was going to happen, the save and then the kill, and fought against it. She would rather do herself in. But she couldn’t get her hands to loosen their grip, their will to survive greater than her brains, and Zane clawed his way up her arm to get a good hold, dragging her back up.
The both of them were gasping, tears spilling down her cheeks as he let her feet touch the ground, looking at each other with confusion, Penny with gratitude. “Are you okay?” he asked again, and she nodded once more. A small smile touched his lips. And then Penny felt the rough hands on her chest again, once more saw the figure walk away, as she tumbled over and over in midair, on her way to meet the ground.
She woke with a start and a small scream, shooting to sit up in bed and clutching the blankets around her as a protective nest. It took a few moments for Penny to realize she was alone, very alone, the moon starting to rise out her window, and with it the howl-like calling of the monsters. Her heart rate took some time to slow, and she swallowed, feeling retched and like she wanted to vomit. Taking a few more minutes to make sure her legs would stop shaking enough to support her weight, she stood out of bed and slowly made her way over, in nothing but a bra and underwear with the exception of the sheet she was clutching. Her cocoon, her safety net, her protection against the harsh stares of the monsters outside as she took a moment to calm. And yet, for some reason, Penny wanted to see Zane.
The thought had barely formed in her head before Penny found herself out the door and down the hall, stopping before his door and lifting her hand to knock before she paused. Why did she want to see him? It was an intriguing question, really. Still, gut instinct told her to knock, and she laid her hand softly on the door once before letting it fall back to her side. It was late, very late, and even with Zane’s new ability to be perfectly comfortable in the dark, she supposed he kept somewhat normal hours and would be asleep at this point. He would not like to be awoken, not for something as congenial as ‘I felt like saying hello’ or anything more dramatic like ‘I had a nightmare and thought I should come here for a pep talk.’ Penny shook her head and hugged her cocoon closer, walking slowly back to her room and sitting down at the desk.
The light would be too harsh on her now well adjusted eyes, so she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, using the beam of moonlight that fell across the floor to write. But what would she write? Something that would make Zane smile upon seeing it. But what would make him smile? He challenged her, in a way she had never quite been challenged before, except by the grip of her cocaine vice. Still, that had been different; it hadn’t been human, it had just been a thing, controlling her mind and making her see the worst in the world, making her do awful things to keep its control on her. He was not. He was the definition of a pessimist, a cynic who made Penny stop and think. Was it true, that there was no love? Had marriage really only been a tool to keep one from loneliness, was it really all just hormones?
Would that make Zane smile, to know that there was one more cynic in this now decrepit world?
Penny liked to imagine it wouldn’t. In her head- or perhaps more accurately her heart- she imagined that while outwardly he would take it with a note of small, personal satisfaction, inside it would sadden him that one more light of optimism was taken away, even if he would never admit it. So instead, she just wrote, ‘Thinking of you, and it makes me want a burger. I think I’ll make one and put a smiley face on it, just for you :)’ and signed it with the initials P.L. before getting up and going back to his door, slipping the paper slowly under it.
Well, now what? Penny wanted to get the eery feeling of falling and falling and knowing you were about to land on something harsh and unforgiving out of her head, and figured the best way of doing that was to swim. So still in her underwear and wrapped in her blanket, she walked down the several flights of stairs slowly and feeling intensely, crushingly alone until she reached the basement. The smell of chlorine hit her nostrils, making her nose crinkle, before pushing open the pool door and looking at the room.
It was a decent sized swimming pool, and Penny instantly felt calmed by the mere presence of water. She folded up her blanket evenly, slowly, perfectly, and laid it on a bench before subtly slipping in, trying to make as little impact on the stillness of the scene as she could. The coolness of it rushed up to her neck, and she ducked under quickly, the fluidity of her hair flowing out helping still to calm her. Swimming had been one of the best tools for her recovery in rehab, and now as she floated she once more fondled her hair silkily growing and shrinking in the non-current she remembered why. The feeling that she was being held, that there was a presence there, consumed her, and made her feel soothed and relaxed in a way even Tre could never do.
That dream… The meaning escaped her, and she supposed if she tried to spend too much time trying to interpret it her anxiety would drive back up and even a dip in the pool wouldn’t help her. Her nicotine demons cackled in her head, wanting attention, but Penny ignored them for now. She had until the end of time to develop lung cancer, and who knew how long she had to feel the spirit of consoling water encase her in its love? Very poetic, she thought, and if she told anyone that she expected to be laughed silly at for it, or to be thrown into the proverbial loony bin, as there was no real one now.
Penny heard a door opening, and what she thought might have been a voice, footsteps coming her way, but for the moment she ignored it and closed her eyes. A heavy feeling came over her, as if she were melting, sinking, and she took a deep breath and dove under the surface, dwelling there until her lungs began to explode, howling at her to breathe. She exhaled quickly as she made her way up, taking a deep breath and throwing her hair back, wiping the wet from her face as she opened her eyes to look around.